Supporting interpreters and Deaf people in The Gambia. How you can help.

Gambia is a country in West Africa, the smallest country in mainland Africa, with a population of 1.85 million. It is effectively a strip of land 15 to 30 miles wide and 295 miles long on either bank of the Gambia River, surrounded on three sides by Senegal.

The lingua franca is English, with Wolof and Mandinka major tribal languages. Its main income is from peanut exports, fishing, and tourism, it is heavily dependent on foreign aid, and about a third of the population lives below the international poverty line of US$1.25 a day. There is almost no government support for Deaf people or interpreters.

Many Deaf people there use Gambia Sign Language (GSL) which is a developing indigenous sign language.

This project started when a Gambian Sign Language interpreter, Yahya Jabbi, came to the Association of Sign Language Interpreters (ASLI) conference in September 2012 to ask for support with interpreters' salaries, as a major donor had just pulled out.

£1,000 was raised on the night. But recognising the need to provide dependable support for them in providing and growing a sustainable service over the longer term I started this project, with the support of an 'expert panel' of people with relevant experience we could draw on.

The project combines financial support (salaries) with practical support (e.g. providing interpreter training, lap tops, and video cameras), and involvement with strategy, working with them to develop strategies to grow, professionalise and sustain the service.

The video below shows some of the young Deaf people who came to talk about the need for interpreters in The Gambia.

How the project works:

A group of us (40+ at the moment) contribute £5, £10, or £15 a month each.

Currently approximately two thirds of the donations are used to pay the salaries, travel costs, and employer taxes for two staff; Lamin Sonko and Mansata Dampha, at approximately £47 each p/m, who are employed by The Gambia Association of Deaf and Hard of Hearing (GADHOH).

(For comparison, a qualified nurse working 6 days a week in a state hospital earns approximately £40 for 6-day week. Salaries in The Gambia are low. To make that tangible, approximately £22 buys a family sized sack of rice - just enough to feed 1 family for 1 month.)

The other third of the funding covered the costs of the 3 weeks interpreter training provided in 2015.

All the administration and training is done on a completely voluntary basis, and so all your donations (except for the cost of transferring the money to The Gambia) go directly to the project.

The photo below is of the 7 students (and me) on the 2015 interpreter development course. (Only 4 of them are interpreters).

Why we need more donors:

There are a three main reasons why we need to increase the funds that we have available.

Our recent learning on strategy - i.e. what we thought was a good idea doesn’t and can’t work. (There's no point gaining ends to employ more interpreters when their are no interpreters to be employed).

A reduction in the number of interpreters available. There are currently only three working in the whole of The Gambia.

The probably withdrawal of donor support in developing a GSL and interpreting curriculum (necessary for increasing the number of interpreters).

And no realistic prospect of achieving stable government funding for interpreting by 2018.

In other words, it looks like we will need to support them in developing a strategy for identifying and training people to become interpreters, starting with the development of the GSL curricula, resources and training, then providing training for these people to become interpreters.

​The four interpreters working will all need continued support its their professional development.

Whilst we already have a pledge of £1,000 towards this work for 2016, we currently won’t have enough of a budget to do these things with the current number of supporters. So we need you.

Please contact me for more information about the project (with no obligation!) or to ask how to sign up.